“Well?” he prompted sharply.

“I god take all thad money thad ole fadder an mudder an’ those seventeen liddle brudders an sisters. Tha’s all they god in all the whole worl’.”

“But don’t any of them work? Aren’t any of them married? What’s the matter with them all?”

“Alas! No. All of them too young to worg or marry, excellency.”

“All of them too young?”

“Yes. Me—how ole I am? Oldes’ of all! I am twenty-eight—no, thirty years ole,” she declared, solemnly.

He nearly collapsed. He knew she was a mere child; knew, moreover, that she was lying to him. She had done so before.

“Even if you are thirty, I fail to see how you can have seventeen brothers and sisters younger than yourself.”

She lost herself a moment. Then she said, triumphantly, “My fadder have two wives!”

He surveyed her in studious silence a moment. Her attitude of trouble and despair did not deceive him in the slightest. Nevertheless, he wanted to laugh outright at her, she was such a ridiculous fraud.